The Bureau of Indian
Standards (BIS) has kicked off the process to set new standards to measure
quality of services offered to consumers across different sectors, including
telecom, aviation, e-commerce and healthcare.

The BIS, which sets
the quality regulations for various products from gold to bottled water, called
a meeting of industry bodies to “persuade them to be part of the process and
give their inputs.

Service sector is one
of the key sectors of the Indian economy with a huge potential to grow into one
of the largest markets of the world.

Standards can play a
major facilitative role in this regard. It is important that the standardisation needs and priorities of the sector are
determined.

The BIS said that the
initial focus will be the 12 champion services sectors identified by the
government. These include IT, tourism and hospitality, transport and logistics,
accounting and finance services, legal services, communication services and
construction.

The
standards body also talked about the benchmarks to deal with consumer
complaints or after sales service in an effort to ensure quality in the
services sector.

The
BIS will set up a separate ‘divisional council’ for services in a month’s time.
Under this, different technical committees will be set up — one for each
service.

The
committees will have various stakeholders such as government officials, experts
and industry representatives.

Keywords – Bureau of Indian Standards, service sector.

Ecology and Environment

Compensatory Afforestation
Fund

Why in News?

Former
Environment Minister JairamRamesh
has, in a letter, raised serious objections to the rules governing the
administration of the Compensatory Afforestation
Fund.

He
has described them as a “blatant breach of assurances” given to Parliament.
Here is a look at the key issues involved

What is the
Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF)?

The
CAF is a nationally constituted authority that presides over a corpus of
₹66,000 crore.

This
is money paid by developers who have razed forest land for their construction
projects, and the idea is that such land destroyed needs to be made good by
regenerating forest elsewhere on non-forest land.

The
amount to be paid depends on the economic value of the goods and services that
the razed forest would have provided. These include timber, bamboo, firewood,
carbon sequestration, soil conservation, water recharge, and seed dispersal.

Industrialists
pay this money and this is eventually transferred to the States concerned to
carry out afforestation.

Until
now, a Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and
Planning Authority was in charge of the funds. However a new Act, the CAF Act
2016, now, establishes an independent authority to execute the fund.

However,
it was not until August that the rules governing the management of the fund
were finalised. And this has stoked controversy.

What was the controversy?

During
the passage of the bill, the government has assured the House that all
objections raised, such as

·The provisions of the
Bill vesting greater powers in the forest bureaucracy than on resident tribal
people;

·The possible violation
of tribal rights, and gram panchayats not having the
final say in deciding what kind of forests could be grown

·Doubts on whether it
would lead to an ecologically sustainable replenishing of forests, and whether
tribal people would be persecuted by officialdom under the garb of regenerating
forests — would be addressed within the Rules of the Bill.

Once
the Rules became public, Mr. Ramesh said they were a
“breach” of promises made. In a letter to Union Environment Minister this
month, he pointed out several concerns.

What are these
concerns?

The
CAF Rules “undermined” several aspects of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA).

In
the current form, they significantly reduced the authority of the gram sabhas in having a say in their local compensatory afforestation projects and reduced them to the role of
“consultants”.

Much
power instead was vested with the State-level forest bureaucracy.

The
gram sabhas were put on the same footing as panchayats; consequently there would be great control
exerted by the State authorities in the disbursal of the fund.

The
provisions laid out in the rules limit compliance with the FRA only to those
areas where rights holders have been formally recognised.

What does the
government say?

The
government has said there was ample time for objections — after the rules were
framed — to be recorded.

There
was no undermining of the FRA and the heads of the bodies, who
had the authority to decide on CAF projects, were all members of the community.

c)The bill provides to
establish such institutional framework only at the Centre and not in States.

Which
of the above statements are correct? Choose the correct code.

A)Only a

B)Both a and b

C)Both a and c

D)All the above

Explanation
- The CAF is a nationally constituted authority that presides over a corpus of
₹66,000 crore.

This
is money paid by developers who have razed forest land for their construction
projects, and the idea is that such land destroyed needs to be made good by
regenerating forest elsewhere on non-forest land.

The
amount to be paid depends on the economic value of the goods and services that
the razed forest would have provided. These include timber, bamboo, firewood,
carbon sequestration, soil conservation, water recharge, and seed dispersal.

Industrialists
pay this money and this is eventually transferred to the States concerned to
carry out afforestation.

Until
now, a Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and
Planning Authority was in charge of the funds. However a new Act, the CAF Act
2016, now, establishes an independent authority to execute the fund.

The
Bill provides for establishment of a permanent institutional framework at the
Central at each State and Union territory to ensure utilization of these funds
in an expeditious and transparent manner.

2.
Consider the following statements about the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)

a)
BIS is a statutory organization

b)
It works under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public distribution